Just Got My Japanese Motorcylce License!!!
Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 11:18 am
There's a fairly long story behind this, and I really should have chronicled it from day to day (yes, it takes that long) but I didn't. Sorry. Let's see if I can break it down into a semi digestible/readable format.
STEP 1: Go to local driving school and pay about $1,500 USD. Yes, I could've just gone to the licensing centre and taken the test straight-up, but given my proximity that would've been hugely time consuming, much more frustrating, and depending on my learning curve could easily have been more expensive.
STEP 2: Take eligibility test. This is a written test taken in many parts. Nothing to do with road rules, but more to do with physical and mental reflexes. The first four parts of this test had to do with ticking boxes. The instructor emphasized doing these tests as quickly as we possibly could. First was reading two opposed sets of text, beit numbers, shapes, alphabet, or kanji, and ticking if they were the same or different. I got started and felt great: "Shit, I'm really killing thi... "STOP!"". Confidence drops a lot. Then there was the same test with only shapes. Next was drawing a triangle within a box over and over and over again. After that was drawing a slash through squares. Each test seemed to get quicker and my hand just reacted slower and slower.
Next was a statement/response test. With each statement I must respond on a scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree. My Japanese is pretty shite, so they let my wife translate for me. There were a couple of pages to go through. It was quite distracting that she was laughing out loud at every odd statement. These are the best I remember (in no particular order):
*I want to die.
*I am a happy person.
*I hear voices in my head.
*I think positively about life and about others.
*I lie awake at night thinking about death.
*People are only kind because they want something from me.
*I think about death often.
*I have deep anger.
These are the statements that linger with me. There were many more and I wish I recorded the whole test for posterity (it would've also been fun to hear my wife trying to suppress her giggles as she translated this gear). Somehow I passed, so on to...
STEPS 3 to 20:These steps are the 18 hours of riding and simulator training that is required. I learned a lot of interesting things; some incredibly positive, some left me scratching my head. Here are the highs and lows:
*Overall the instructors helped me with my poise on the bike, how to shift my weight during cornering, pointed out some bad habits I had, and explained how I could improve my general handling.
*Bikes are Honda CB400 Super Fours. All with about 220,000/240,000kms on the clock. Run like tops, even though the instructors rape them. All burgundy. Blecch.
*I got to slow-race around the circuit with one instructor.
*I had three sessions on the simulator. The first instructor cut the lesson short, and the other two told me that my wife and little son will cry so much when I kill myself.
*The crank, s-curve, iipon bashi (15 yard long, 7-odd inch wide concrete stretch that you have to ride along in over 8 seconds) and the slalom (that you have to take in under 7 seconds) are just fun.
*There are a bigger set of crank and s-curves that I was told to really go at. Not in the test, just practice. "Lean the bike over and accelerate here, here, here..." I feel proud that I scraped pegs during a license lesson.
*Figure 8. Again, not in the test, but fantastic practice. Head up, head up...
*Emergency braking. In the test. In practice I found out that I'm a back brake junky. In my defense, I haven't ridden a regular motorcycle in years, and the last ten have been spent largely without a clutch, so when it came time to stop quickly, my car foot braking came to the fore: squirrelly-arsed that bastard to a long stop that bugged my instructors eyes out nicely. He didn't need to tell me it was shite. He had me practicing over and over again. Good fun, really. Especially when you understand what the problem is and it's just a matter of controlling the muscles and impulses and making them obey. Got better and better with the right hand and tried to forget I had a right foot.
*"Only use your front brake when going in a straight line". Ok, I'll do that to pass your test, but God knows I'm going to try and figure out how to use it around corners once I'm out of here!
Lessons done? Nice work! Doesn't mean you're out of here:
STEP 21: THE TEST: Everyone is prepared to take their test a few times, two or three seem to be about average. Licensing in Japan is just so strict. My test was booked in for the other week but was canceled due to rain. I re-booked for this morning. It's been about 2 weeks since I was on their bike and their course, so, even though I knew I'd take it easy and do my best, I could see myself taking the test at least another one or two times.
Day breaks and it is perfect. I mean PERFECT! Not a cloud in the sky, amazing steely blue ocean, chilly, but crisp. I turn up for the test feeling relaxed, thinking "I'll more than likely be failed on some bullshit technicality to prove some kind of point, but that's ok. I'll be as measured as I feel they want me to be, and I'll just do the best I can: their turf, their rules=my license".
I ride the course: Up here, down there, left, hill stop, then right and pull over, then take off and head on straight and into the bike course, etc. It was a bit of a mindfuck for me to remember, but today, somehow, I feel confident (There is so much bullshit about which turn where, when you should signal, how you should change position in your lane to approach a corner, how you should enter and exit a corner. Get it wrong and it's test over). I ride, I remember the signaling points, I out-brake myself like a motherfucker on the emergency braking section (Huzzah! no back brake lock-up!) I ended up stopping so short of the mark I thought they might fail me, but instead I got an impassive look of not disapproval. I ride the rest of the course with the idiot in my head saying "You've done well. Just don't fuck up here. Or here. Or here..."
I finish and park, thinking "It wasn't PERFECT, but I think I did it."
Did I do it?
Another guy is taking the test. I have to wait... watching...
Finished! He did ok, I think.
Instructor walks in.
Me: Excuse me, did I pass?
Him: What? Oh, of course. Come back in an hour for your paperwork.
JOB DONE!
But then there's:
STEP 22:Now I have to go to the local licensing centre (almost 3 hours drive away), get ratified and take an eye test which I will piss-in because I can read shit as tiny as this whilst standing on my head and getting my nutsack shaved by Natalie Portman.
Once that is done (not the nutsack-shaving, but the eye test) then it will be...
JOB DONE!
STEP 1: Go to local driving school and pay about $1,500 USD. Yes, I could've just gone to the licensing centre and taken the test straight-up, but given my proximity that would've been hugely time consuming, much more frustrating, and depending on my learning curve could easily have been more expensive.
STEP 2: Take eligibility test. This is a written test taken in many parts. Nothing to do with road rules, but more to do with physical and mental reflexes. The first four parts of this test had to do with ticking boxes. The instructor emphasized doing these tests as quickly as we possibly could. First was reading two opposed sets of text, beit numbers, shapes, alphabet, or kanji, and ticking if they were the same or different. I got started and felt great: "Shit, I'm really killing thi... "STOP!"". Confidence drops a lot. Then there was the same test with only shapes. Next was drawing a triangle within a box over and over and over again. After that was drawing a slash through squares. Each test seemed to get quicker and my hand just reacted slower and slower.
Next was a statement/response test. With each statement I must respond on a scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree. My Japanese is pretty shite, so they let my wife translate for me. There were a couple of pages to go through. It was quite distracting that she was laughing out loud at every odd statement. These are the best I remember (in no particular order):
*I want to die.
*I am a happy person.
*I hear voices in my head.
*I think positively about life and about others.
*I lie awake at night thinking about death.
*People are only kind because they want something from me.
*I think about death often.
*I have deep anger.
These are the statements that linger with me. There were many more and I wish I recorded the whole test for posterity (it would've also been fun to hear my wife trying to suppress her giggles as she translated this gear). Somehow I passed, so on to...
STEPS 3 to 20:These steps are the 18 hours of riding and simulator training that is required. I learned a lot of interesting things; some incredibly positive, some left me scratching my head. Here are the highs and lows:
*Overall the instructors helped me with my poise on the bike, how to shift my weight during cornering, pointed out some bad habits I had, and explained how I could improve my general handling.
*Bikes are Honda CB400 Super Fours. All with about 220,000/240,000kms on the clock. Run like tops, even though the instructors rape them. All burgundy. Blecch.
*I got to slow-race around the circuit with one instructor.
*I had three sessions on the simulator. The first instructor cut the lesson short, and the other two told me that my wife and little son will cry so much when I kill myself.
*The crank, s-curve, iipon bashi (15 yard long, 7-odd inch wide concrete stretch that you have to ride along in over 8 seconds) and the slalom (that you have to take in under 7 seconds) are just fun.
*There are a bigger set of crank and s-curves that I was told to really go at. Not in the test, just practice. "Lean the bike over and accelerate here, here, here..." I feel proud that I scraped pegs during a license lesson.
*Figure 8. Again, not in the test, but fantastic practice. Head up, head up...
*Emergency braking. In the test. In practice I found out that I'm a back brake junky. In my defense, I haven't ridden a regular motorcycle in years, and the last ten have been spent largely without a clutch, so when it came time to stop quickly, my car foot braking came to the fore: squirrelly-arsed that bastard to a long stop that bugged my instructors eyes out nicely. He didn't need to tell me it was shite. He had me practicing over and over again. Good fun, really. Especially when you understand what the problem is and it's just a matter of controlling the muscles and impulses and making them obey. Got better and better with the right hand and tried to forget I had a right foot.
*"Only use your front brake when going in a straight line". Ok, I'll do that to pass your test, but God knows I'm going to try and figure out how to use it around corners once I'm out of here!
Lessons done? Nice work! Doesn't mean you're out of here:
STEP 21: THE TEST: Everyone is prepared to take their test a few times, two or three seem to be about average. Licensing in Japan is just so strict. My test was booked in for the other week but was canceled due to rain. I re-booked for this morning. It's been about 2 weeks since I was on their bike and their course, so, even though I knew I'd take it easy and do my best, I could see myself taking the test at least another one or two times.
Day breaks and it is perfect. I mean PERFECT! Not a cloud in the sky, amazing steely blue ocean, chilly, but crisp. I turn up for the test feeling relaxed, thinking "I'll more than likely be failed on some bullshit technicality to prove some kind of point, but that's ok. I'll be as measured as I feel they want me to be, and I'll just do the best I can: their turf, their rules=my license".
I ride the course: Up here, down there, left, hill stop, then right and pull over, then take off and head on straight and into the bike course, etc. It was a bit of a mindfuck for me to remember, but today, somehow, I feel confident (There is so much bullshit about which turn where, when you should signal, how you should change position in your lane to approach a corner, how you should enter and exit a corner. Get it wrong and it's test over). I ride, I remember the signaling points, I out-brake myself like a motherfucker on the emergency braking section (Huzzah! no back brake lock-up!) I ended up stopping so short of the mark I thought they might fail me, but instead I got an impassive look of not disapproval. I ride the rest of the course with the idiot in my head saying "You've done well. Just don't fuck up here. Or here. Or here..."
I finish and park, thinking "It wasn't PERFECT, but I think I did it."
Did I do it?
Another guy is taking the test. I have to wait... watching...
Finished! He did ok, I think.
Instructor walks in.
Me: Excuse me, did I pass?
Him: What? Oh, of course. Come back in an hour for your paperwork.
JOB DONE!
But then there's:
STEP 22:Now I have to go to the local licensing centre (almost 3 hours drive away), get ratified and take an eye test which I will piss-in because I can read shit as tiny as this whilst standing on my head and getting my nutsack shaved by Natalie Portman.
Once that is done (not the nutsack-shaving, but the eye test) then it will be...
JOB DONE!
Congrats on your license. Japan has such polite drivers! Nobody wants to kill themself.
